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CHAPTER 15 . Chowder . It was quite late in the evening when the little Moss came snugly to anchor , and Queequeg and I went ashore ; so we could attend to no business that day , at least none but a supper and a bed . The landlord of the Spouter - Inn had recommended us to his cousin Hosea Hussey of the Try Pots , whom he asserted to be the proprietor of one of the best kept hotels in all Nantucket , and moreover he had assured us that Cousin Hosea , as he called him , was famous for his chowders . In short , he plainly hinted that we could not possibly do better than try pot - luck at the Try Pots . But the directions he had given us about keeping a yellow warehouse on our starboard hand till we opened a white church to the larboard , and then keeping that on the larboard hand till we made a corner three points to the starboard , and that done , then ask the first man we met where the place was : these crooked directions of his very much puzzled us at first , especially as , at the outset , Queequeg insisted that the yellow warehouse — our first point of departure — must be left on the larboard hand , whereas I had understood Peter Coffin to say it was on the starboard . However , by dint of beating about a little in the dark , and now and then knocking up a peaceable inhabitant to inquire the way , we at last came to something which there was no mistaking . Two enormous wooden pots painted black , and suspended by asses ’ ears , swung from the cross - trees of an old top - mast , planted in front of an old doorway . The horns of the cross - trees were sawed off on the other side , so that this old top - mast looked not a little like a gallows . Perhaps I was over sensitive to such impressions at the time , but I could not help staring at this gallows with a vague misgiving . A sort of crick was in my neck as I gazed up to the two remaining horns ; yes , two of them , one for Queequeg , and one for me . It’s ominous , thinks I . A Coffin my Innkeeper upon landing in my first whaling port ; tombstones staring at me in the whalemen’s chapel ; and here a gallows ! and a pair of prodigious black pots too ! Are these last throwing out oblique hints touching Tophet ? I was called from these reflections by the sight of a freckled woman with yellow hair and a yellow gown , standing in the porch of the inn , under a dull red lamp swinging there , that looked much like an injured eye , and carrying on a brisk scolding with a man in a purple woollen shirt . “ Get along with ye , ” said she to the man , “ or I’ll be combing ye ! ” “ Come on , Queequeg , ” said I , “ all right . There’s Mrs . Hussey . ” And so it turned out ; Mr . Hosea Hussey being from home , but leaving Mrs . Hussey entirely competent to attend to all his affairs . Upon making known our desires for a supper and a bed , Mrs . Hussey , postponing further scolding for the present , ushered us into a little room , and seating us at a table spread with the relics of a recently concluded repast , turned round to us and said — “ Clam or Cod ? ”
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